The ruling, which Uribe’s authorized staff mentioned he’ll enchantment, is the newest resolution in a long-running, vastly politicised case.
Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been discovered responsible of witness tampering and bribery in a landmark trial, turning into the nation’s first ex-president to ever be discovered responsible at trial.
Choose Sandra Liliana Heredia dominated on Monday that there was sufficient proof to find out that Uribe, 73, conspired with a lawyer to coax three former members of paramilitary teams who have been in jail into altering testimony they’d offered to Ivan Cepeda, a left-wing senator who had launched an investigation into Uribe’s alleged ties to a paramilitary group within the Nineties.
The case dates to 2012, when Uribe filed a libel swimsuit in opposition to Cepeda with the Supreme Court docket. However in a twist, the excessive court docket dismissed the costs in opposition to Cepeda and commenced investigating Uribe in 2018.
Uribe faces as much as 12 years in jail, however a sentencing can be delivered in a separate listening to on Friday. He’s anticipated to enchantment the ruling.
Uribe’s critics have celebrated his trial because the deserved downfall of a person repeatedly accused of shut relationships with violent right-wing paramilitaries, however by no means convicted of any crime.
The previous chief, 73, and his supporters say the method is a persecution and that he’s harmless.
Uribe and one in every of his legal professionals, Jaime Granados, joined the listening to by way of videolink, whereas one other lawyer, Jaime Lombana, appeared in particular person.
“This isn’t the tip of this course of, the enchantment is subsequent and we’re going to display that this resolution, which we respect, is fallacious,” lawyer Juan Felipe Amaya, a part of Uribe’s authorized staff, instructed journalists on the court docket.
Granados instructed the listening to that the presumption of Uribe’s innocence must be maintained and requested for him to stay free throughout the the rest of the method.
Each detractors and supporters gathered outdoors the court docket, with some Uribe backers sporting masks of his face.
Even when the conviction is ultimately upheld, Uribe could also be allowed to serve his ultimate sentence on home arrest due to his age.
Uribe’s trial triggered criticism from United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Uribe had a detailed relationship with the US throughout his two phrases as president between 2002 and 2010, as right-wing governments in Latin America have typically had.
“Uribe’s solely crime has been to tirelessly combat and defend his homeland. The weaponisation of Colombia’s judicial department by radical judges has now set a worrisome precedent,” Rubio mentioned on X.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a leftist, defended the ruling, writing on X that “a powerful justice system” will allow Colombia to emerge from violence. He added in one other message that Rubio was interfering with Colombia’s sovereignty.
“A call in opposition to the ex-president may generate some type of reprisal by the federal government of the US,” Banco de Bogota mentioned in a word on Monday, referring to a proposal by US Republican lawmaker Mario Diaz-Balart to chop non-military help to Colombia subsequent 12 months, partly on issues of due course of violations within the Uribe case.
Uribe, who was positioned beneath home arrest for 2 months in 2020, is head of the highly effective Democratic Centre get together and was a senator for years each earlier than and after his presidency.
He has repeatedly emphasised that he extradited paramilitary leaders to the US.
Colombia’s reality fee says paramilitary teams, which demobilised beneath offers with Uribe’s authorities, killed greater than 205,000 individuals, almost half of the 450,000 deaths recorded throughout the ongoing civil battle.
In current many years, right-wing paramilitary teams throughout Latin America – backed by the US – together with the armed forces of allied governments, have been accountable not just for killings, but in addition for compelled disappearances, sexual violence, mass displacement, and different grave human rights abuses.